Gravity
by Rydia Auften
Summary: Why was Victoria at the funeral? It's going to be a short exploration of that question and seeing Max and Victoria become closer. The T rating is for the liberal use of swearing.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Life is Strange

Warning: I don't use a beta reader. If I re-read and find things I'll repost it.

Warning 2: It's kind of a Chasefield story.

I am writing this because in the shitty ending to Life is Strange, we see Victoria walking with Max during Chloe's funeral. We all know Vic wasn't a friend to either girl at this point in time in the game, so I wanted to explore why she could be there.

But just so you know, I only saved the game when I got the Pricefield ending, they are my OTP...but if Chloe had to die, I'd like Victoria to have a chance with Max.

* * *

Gravity

By Rydia Auften

"Taylor!" The outburst was followed by a deep sigh. Her friend had been rapping on her door trying to coax her out to eat. "I just want to be alone right now so can you just leave!"

"I just want to help you Vic" the girl said softly while trying to hold back her own sobs. It had been a fucked up day at Blackwell, and nobody was immune to that.

Today, a former student was killed in the girls washroom: Chloe Price. What she was doing there was a mystery, but what was known was who her killer was: Victoria's best friend, Nathan Prescott.

She had been in the hallway with other Vortex club members when the gunshot rang. Naturally, the panic set the students into a panic and running for the main door because nobody knew where the sound had originated from. When she got to the foyer, she stopped because she could hear the crying, two voices. One was a female, it was a mournful sound that she could somehow hear through the commotion of everything else. The other sound was the unmistakeable sound of Nathan. He was wailing

"No, I'm sorry please! I didn't mean to, I'm sorry, I'm sorry" over and over.

When Victoria stopped, others stopped too. The girls bathroom door was open, Nathan was holding it open where he sat and rocking himself in his own arms. She went to him as she always had when he was having an episode and that's when she saw the body on the floor. She saw the blood. She saw Max Caulfield scoop the blue haired girl into her arms.

"I'm so sorry" she said softly. Not that it was audible, but the Chase girl thought she could read that on her lips.

The commotion in the hallway became silent as everybody around began to survey the scene to become witnesses to the aftermath of a crime.

"What's going on here" Principal Wells shouted as he came out of his office, but he was also soon silenced as he finally understood how far gone the boy was. He had been expunging Nathan's records of anything but his achievements. Sean Prescott was a terrifying man, he had no doubt the school's benefactor would withdraw his financial support if his only son was shown to be anything but normal and successful. This, and especially in front of the student body, was beyond his power to hide.

Nathan was sitting with the gun in his lap. Victoria was kneeling beside him. She could see what he had done, but she couldn't think of anything else to say when she nervously asked him:

"Nathan...what did you do?"

But she knew he couldn't see her. Sometimes he would disappear so far inside himself that she could only sit near him and wait for him to snap out of it. It had been getting worse since he had stopped taking his meds. Not that he hadn't been self-medicating with other shit, but the ones prescribed to him, he hated the way they made him feel. He said they made him feel out of his own body.

She was surprised when she heard Max speak up. Her face was swollen from crying, but also anger.

"You're a killer Nathan" She said seething. "Tell them! Tell them you killed Chloe."

Somehow he could hear her. He muttered back

"I did it, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to." He was still rocking back and forth, but not as strongly.

"And you hurt people!" Max' voice was louder. "You drug girls to take pictures. You did it to Kate. You did it to Rachel."

"Rachel" the boy said back. His voice was loud and mournful "That wasn't my Fault! Jefferson! He overdosed her. Fuck! Rachel, I'm sorry!"

The scene went something like that. Victoria started to fade out. She knew she should stay and try to do something...anything, but it was too much emotionally. Her best friend was a killer, her favourite teacher had just been implicated in the murder of Rachel Amber whom she had assumed had just run away to become a star somewhere else.

But she wasn't anywhere. Rachel was dead. Chloe Price was dead. The girl she saw get fucked up the night before and make out with strange boys probably was doing it because Nathan had did that to her.

The sounds around her became like an echo and she just walked. She didn't know where her feet were taking her. Nobody followed her and she didn't care. She left the school and followed the path she always took to get back to her dormitory. There were kids outside doing whatever, probably talking about whatever was happening inside the school. She could vaguely hear sirens in the background, how close or far away they were she wasn't sure, but she was already inside the dormitory when they arrived. She went upstairs, down her long hallway and passed by Rachel's old room.

Why did she have to be so perfect? She didn't deserve to die.

She didn't realize she had been standing outside of Rachel's old door for more than a minute. A strong feeling was welling up in her chest. It had started when she first saw Nathan sitting on the floor as the gravity of the situation had struck her. She pushed it back in. It fueled her to keep moving forward, but it was getting harder the closer to her own room she came.

It began as an involuntary sharp release of breath, and when she inhaled again, her lungs took in the air as a merciless shudder as it fell out of her again, this time as a sob.

"No" she cried out, trying to hold in her tear ducts, trying to keep the empty hallway from seeing her break. Her feet hastened the final steps to her door which she had kept unlocked since nobody would dare to enter her room. As she shut and locked the door behind her, the well of emotions burst forth and finally, she let herself cry.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer, I don't own any part of Life is Strange.

Warning, maybe I'll add that there's a trigger warning for physical abuse and also sexual disappointment. Also, if you love Warren, you might not like this chapter.

Gravity

Chapter Two by Rydia Auften

Victoria didn't know how long she had been alone and sleeping on the floor when Taylor had come to try to console her. The night was falling and so her unlit room was also in a state of darkness . The girl was a true friend. Taylor would understand she needed to push her away for now, and that she would come back to her when she was ready, but right now she was not.

She couldn't possibly understand what she was going through right now. Nobody could.

Victoria felt thoroughly deceived by the promises of the year to come. In her last year at Blackwell, she and Nathan were the Vortex Club, now that would likely be shut down since it was being fueled by his drugs. She wouldn't get the chance to finally prove her worth as a photographer to her parents by winning the competition-she would have done anything-she would have pulled a Rachel Amber and had sex with Mr. Jefferson to get what she wanted.

Rachel wasn't coming back, and it wasn't because she had run away to become a star somewhere else like she had thought. She was dead and the perfect shadow that Victoria finally thought she had escaped would loom larger than ever. Not that she thought of herself as a fortune teller, but that's what happens to celebrities. They live dazzling lives, but if they disappear and then one day die, suddenly everybody who forgot about them remembers and then they're all anybody can talk about.

Finally, she felt deceived by Nathan. They were so close. She had been there to console him after his father would smack him around and call him names. Victoria thought they told each other everything, she had no idea he could be such a monster.

Some time had passed and she had finally moved to lie on her bed. With such heavy grief and disappointment bearing down on her, she was certain sleep would come again easily. Unfortunately, her mind suddenly decided to be curious. After spending most of her day sleeping and feeling sorry for herself, she now questions strike her as familiar voices started up down the hallway.

How did Caulfield know the things she knew? Why would Nathan confess to them if they weren't true?

She could hear Kate Marsh quietly talking to Max as the approached the door across the hall.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay Max?"

"Thanks, but no Kate. I just want to brush my teeth and go to sleep" Max's voice was soft and polite, yet void of the fake sweetness she expected from her.

"Fuck off Kate" the Chase girl whispered in annoyance. Clearly Max wanted to be alone. She knew she owed Kate an apology for picking on her about the night before. She had been planning on roasting the pious girl for as long as it would get the laugh, but there wasn't a point to that anymore.

"Fuck you Nathan" she muttered to herself in the darkness.

Kate reminded Max she would leave her door unlocked if she needed anything at anytime before going back to her own room.

Max was planning on going to the washroom and it struck Victoria then that she had been ignoring her bladder for hours. She was certain the young woman wouldn't want to see anyone, much less her, so she opted to hold it in just a while longer.

To kill time she picked up her phone to check the time, which was 9:12pm, and discovered she had missed many texts. She usually turned the phone to mute when she was in class, but today afterwards, she had simply neglected to turn the sound back up. She looked at her list.

Eight from Taylor, one from Juliet, one from Dana, two from Zach and three each from Courtney and her mother. She began to read:

5:14pm-Mom: We just received a call from the Principal about a shooting. He says you've been accounted for. How are you doing?

6:45pm-Mom: We can get you into see Dr. Shek if you need to talk it out.

"Whatever mom." Going to a therapist had been her parents solution to dealing with inconvenient things such as feelings.

8:45pm-Mom: Blackwell is in the news. Your father is working late tonight but we will be coming tomorrow evening to see you. We'll bring Leibie.

For the first time in hours, Victoria smiled. Annie Leibovitz was her west highland white terrier. Her pooch was going to be nine this year, she was looking forward to seeing her.

She continued reading.

5:57pm-Zach: Today was fucked Vic. I had to tok to the cops I ned to get wasted

9:02pm-Zach: Want to hook up

Beneath the text was a file to open. She was sure it was going to be a dick pic because that's what Zach did when he drank.

"Loser" she exclaimed to the air, but she wasn't necessarily addressing the jock on the phone. She had been sexting with him for weeks, for herself it was all in good fun, but she had no actual intention of following through. Not now anyway. Maybe sex and alcohol could take her out of her mind for a short while, but first it meant effort. She would need to shower, put on something cute and if she was lucky he wouldn't smell too badly of goat and cheap beer. Afterwards she would need another shower.

Fuck that, she didn't have the energy. She thought she heard then Max' door click shut, so maybe she had finished in the washroom.

Just to kill a few more seconds, she quickly undressed and neatly folded her clothes into her laundry hamper before pulling a long silly night gown out of her drawer. It was black with a picture of a walking man wearing big ugly brown shoes on it. The caption was 'Keep on Truckin', her mother said it was a classic slogan. She rolled her eyes to herself at the memory, the woman couldn't explain what it even meant. She wore it enough to guarantee it would fade and turn to rags sooner than later.

Barefoot, she wandered down the darkened hallway carrying her toothbrush and hoped nobody would be in the restroom. it was after 10 now. She could see lights on in Dana's room and could hear Juliet talking inside. She could see Brooke's light was on under the door, but the nerd was like that, studying at all hours of the night.

As luck would have it, the bathroom was free. Quickly she took care of things and with soft steps, she made the journey back down the hallway.

Her stomach grumbled but she ignored it as she usually did. Eating this late at night would make you fat is what her grandmother used to tell her. But the hunger was ferocious. It made her think of the cookies Max kept stashed in her drawer. A few times she had snuck into her room to steal some when she went to shower in the morning. It was totally worth it since sneaking around burned a lot of calories she liked to tell herself. Someone in the Caulfield family was a good baker.

She very well couldn't steal any tonight. As she looked to Max' room, she could see the light was still on so she must still be awake.

Briefly she contemplated opening the door to see if she was okay.

Hey, here's some disingenuous words of acting like I care but as soon as you comfort me with the knowledge that you're just fine I can go back to pretending like everything is normal in the world.

Thinking that would be a shitty thing to do, to force Max to lie to her, she went back to her own room.

As she laid down in her bed, the anger over Max' situation struck her. Sure, Victoria had to think over Caulfield's place in the Nathan and Chloe story but right now, she couldn't fight her empathy.

 _People are users._

Those she called friends would gather around her now to make themselves feel better by offering her whatever they could. Because they couldn't understand what she was going through, in time they would push her to feel better again-to see the brighter side of life-instead of letting her process.

She could see that nerd boy Warren, who was currently macking on all the nerd girls in Blackwell trying to give away his virginity, attempt to use her sadness to his advantage. Play the hero, get the girl, that's what boys seemed to think.

She next thought of Taylor, who would probably try to see her again tomorrow. She figured she should read at least her texts, but she couldn't afford to hold any more emotional weight for now. In the morning, she would knock on her door to check up on her but she hoped she was staying with Courtney overnight. The dark haired girl would be an adequate stand in for herself while she put herself back together.

Lately, the one she had been turning to when it came to talking about uncomfortable feelings was Nathan. When Taylor's mom had become sick, Victoria felt like she needed to hold back her own vulnerabilities to help the girl get through it. Nathan understood her though. If someone messed with her, hurt her, he would offer her a joint. He would say something like:

"That's fucked. Want me to hurt him?"

And then they'd laugh together.

He had her back, and she had his too, except when it came to his father. Sean Prescott was fake and his smile was too big when he talked. If he ever asked to be alone with Nathan, as soon as the door was closed, he would beat and berate his son. Victoria was always respectful to his face and she never said anything disrespectful about him, but that was only because she was afraid he would find out somehow. He was a terrifying force of nature.

Mr. Prescott must have done something to send Nathan off the deep end. What else could it be?

With her mind busy, she hadn't realized an hour an a half had flown by. She looked at her phone and saw it was now almost midnight.

She sat up on her bed in frustration.

"God dammit Nathan, what the fuck were you doing?" she found herself speaking to the darkness. The one who apparently had answers was Max Caulfield and she wanted to shake them out of her. She stood up and marched to her door and opened it to the nearly pitch black hallway. The only bedroom light was coming from Max' room.

"Good, she's still awake" she thought aggressively, seeing herself twist open the girl's door and yelling at her until she talked. She took the two strides to the door and stopped as her hand touched the knob.

She didn't know what she was going to find when she was inside. Max could be crying, or sleeping, or just taking selfies to capture a genuine moment. Not only would Victoria look like a piece of shit for attacking her, she would feel like one too.

She exhaled and thought about leaving, but the idea of going to be alone with her thoughts on her bed was lacking appeal.

She thought about going to Taylor's room, but again, she wasn't ready for their mutual exchange of emotional shit. She considered texting Zack back and telling him she was finally ready to have sex with him. Not that she was, but lying back and letting him jerk himself off in her body for a few moments could be an alright distraction. She let the image of that form in her head and immediately found it repulsive. She nixed that idea.

Victoria had had sexual experiences, and they were nothing like the romantic scenes she had seen in the movies. The tease, the chase, that's where the enjoyment of it had been for her. It made her feel powerful to be the object of another's desire, but once the clothing came off things got awkward. Once or twice it was even painful. She figured she wouldn't regret it if for her last year at Blackwell she stayed celibate.

She had still been holding onto the doorknob when she heard movement down the hall.

Someone was coming out their room.

She didn't know why she panicked then, why she didn't want to be seen. In a reflexive moment, she twisted the knob and rushed into Max's room before shutting the door behind her.

She knew the bed was beside the entrance, and her eyes went there expecting to see the girl but instead saw it was empty. Was she even here?

"Max?" she spoke quietly. She turned her head towards the couch on the other side of the room.

She gasped in surprise at what she saw.

Max looked awake but her eyes looked dead. They were open and she was staring at the wall in front of her, but not reacting to the intrusion to her bedroom. She was seated cross legged with a pillow on her lap. On top of it was what she recognized to be Chloe's necklace, the one with three bullets strung to it. Max wasn't holding the pillow, her hands were to her sides.

Briefly, it occurred to Victoria that her neighbour may have killed herself somehow, but then she saw her slowly blink and she felt relief.

"Max." She said again, this time more as a statement. The girl looked absolutely destroyed.

She contemplated leaving, going to get Kate, but the pure absence of expression she was seeing was hard to turn away from. She didn't hate Max. No matter what she had ever said or done to the girl, she didn't think she deserved the pain she was clearly in. She looked to the floor and not surprised she saw it covered in bunched up used tissues. It all reminded her of how heavy her own heart was, but also how her tears had already been spent.

She picked up the blanket on the bed, before she moved her way to the couch, kicking the snotty rags aside. Max still had yet to acknowledge her presence, and maybe, Victoria contemplated, that would make what she was going to do next easier.

She spread the blanket over the girl up to her shoulders, but left enough of it on the side for one more. She then sat down and pulled the rest of it over herself. She could feel Max's cool hand on the couch. She scooped it up and cradled it in her own before scooching closer.

"Max" she spoke softly once more. She wasn't entirely sure what more she should say. There was nothing that could make things better, nothing yet to make things right, but she recognized that it was strange that she was the one to be sitting here now. The only thing she could think of to justify that, and maybe Max needed to hear it was:

"I'm not here to be a bitch. Okay."


	3. Chapter 3

Victoria sat cross legged on the couch and said nothing.

In her own room, the silence had made her mind busy, made it impossible to fall back asleep. Strangely here, she felt peaceful. Her mind blanked as if to protect Max from her thoughts and soon enough, the slumber that had been evading her finally came.

Her dreams took her back to one of the last days of school the previous April. It wasn't a strange thing, to come home stumbling with Rachel after hanging out with the rest of the gang. The dream starts off similar to the real day, but it was far different. On this day for real, Rachel had invited Victoria into her room and asked if she could keep a secret. She confessed that was madly in love with somebody they both knew. Victoria first guessed it was their drug guy, Frank, it wasn't a secret that the Amber girl was hanging out a lot with that scruffy loser. When that was the wrong answer, she guessed Chloe. Rachel said she did love Chloe, but "not like that." Victoria told her just to tell her the real answer, but never got one because the popular girl had just passed out. The dream differs after Rachel asked Victoria to guess whom she loves. Her answer this time is "Jefferson. Don't you know he's going to kill you" and then suddenly she's not in Rachel's room anymore, she's at The Chase Space sitting on a bench in front of a blown up photograph of herself sitting on the very bench she's sitting on. She is not in the centre of the frame, but is off to the side where it is visible that she is holding the hand of someone who is not otherwise in the picture. She looks to her side to see who is there and unexpectedly it is Rachel. She is not holding her hand, but is smoking a joint looking out into darkness and for whatever reason, Liebie is on her lap.

"But is there really anything wrong with falling for another girl?" she asks her, yet to nobody.

The joint is presented in front of her, she accepts it.

"Periods" Victoria replies casually.

Rachel throws her head back and laughs deeply. She then looks at her again with that mischievous expression and says:

"Ampersands."

She awoke to her phone buzzing on her leg. Her hand went instinctively to pick it up but before she could look at it, she realized her head was leaning against the head of another leaning against her. Her eyes scanned the area and she remembered why she was waking up in Max's room. Her ears could hear the steady breaths of the girl next to her and she felt relief that she was able to finally fall asleep.

She wondered for a moment why she was supposed to care.

She and Max were not friends.

It's not that she was against it, but due to Max's general apathy towards anything Victoria said to her, she figured the Blackwell newbie wasn't interested in her friendship anyway. She realized then, as her left hand lifted her phone to check the time, 4:33am, that her right hand still held Max's. It made her think of her dream that was rapidly fading from her consciousness; Rachel was not sitting next to her, and while together they were not the kind of friends who held hands, they had had a few good conversations while they were high. They also both cared about Nathan. Sean was always on his best behaviour whenever Rachel was around, whether it was because her father was the D.A. or just because he was utterly charmed by her. Victoria respected that.

She decided then that she should go back to her own room. Perhaps she would be able to fall back to sleep, or maybe she could read her texts and emails and find out what was happening, but first she would need to extract herself from the current seating arrangement.

Carefully as she could, she placed a hand on Max's head as she shifted to the left. She kept one hand to that task as the other maneuvered the pillow off her lap and onto the couch where Max's head would lay. Her body naturally came down so she was on her side. Victoria stood up with two free hands and made sure the girl was properly blanketed.

Before she moved to turn out the lights, she took a last look at Max to make sure she would be okay by herself. The girl was still and silent, it looked as though she could make it through the night. There was a strange texture beneath her foot she realized. Something hard and stringy, and something smooth. She looked down and discovered that Chloe's necklace had fallen on the floor, likely when Max had slumped over against her. She reached down to pick it up, she couldn't help but sneer at it.

Stupid Chloe's stupid necklace. The girl wasn't even dumb; in every class they had together, Chloe had been the top student, until her father had died of course. Chloe could have been anything and everything, now she was probably lying naked in the morgue, cold and alone. Forever.

Her face threatened to fall again as the sadness of the situation struck her, but she shook the feeling away. They were not friends. Nathan was her friend, but he was now a killer. How the hell was she supposed to stand behind him after his confession of guilt?

"Fuck," she whispered to herself as she placed the necklace above Max's head. It would probably be stressful for her if it wasn't nearby, she decided.

It was strange. Victoria didn't even know Chloe had friends-other than Rachel of course. She tried to stop her brain from thinking about these unnecessary things and turned to leave. She'd ask Max about them later.

She turned out the lights and used her phone to illuminate her way back to her own room.

She sat on her bed and quietly began looking through her texts. There were no surprises. Her friends were checking in on her, most of them had already talked to police about what they saw and heard; Courtney was sleeping in Taylor's room, they were planning on knocking on her door around 8am and wouldn't take no for an answer about her getting some breakfast. Victoria smiled and looked at the time. It was after 5am, there was light starting to stream in from the coming dawn and she wondered if it was worth her time to even try to snooze again.

The last text she read was the one that had woken her up, it was from her father.

Daddy: Hey Vixen, tomorrow's the big show so it's not a great time for your mother and I to be leaving the gallery. We'll come by on Sunday afternoon, or if you like, we can arrange to have you picked up and brought home Friday. We can get you in to see Dr. Shek on Monday. Let us know.

Victoria sighed deeply, disappointed, but not surprised that her parents weren't coming after all.

She wanted to text back: "No daddy, I need you", but instead she wrote back

Hey daddy, it's okay. I'll see you Sunday :)

What could they have really done for her anyway? That question didn't stop the ache in her chest nor the new tears from welling up in her eyes.

She put her phone down and laid her head on her pillow.

It was going to be a terrible, terrible day.


End file.
